Job creation in the private sector tailed off significantly in June in another sign that the economy is getting closer to full employment, according to a report Thursday from ADP and Moody’s Analytics.

Companies added 158,000 positions for the month, a number that economists who released the report said was still strong but stood well below the robust 230,000 number the report showed in May. The reading also was considerably below the 185,000 gain that economists surveyed by Reuters expected, and was revised lower from the initial 253,000 count.

“The job market continues to power forward,” Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi said in a statement. “At this pace, which is double the rate of labor force growth, the tight labor market will continue getting tighter.”

The ADP/Moody’s release comes a day before the government’s closely watched monthly nonfarm payrolls count. The market is expecting that report to show a gain of about 180,000 jobs in June. However, the two numbers sometimes don’t mesh — in May, the ADP count of 230,000 was well ahead of the 138,000 in the Bureau of Labor Statistics report.